June 14, 2014

Apple Seeks Trademark for "Maps Connect"

After Apple's grand WWDC keynote earlier this month which covered so much ground regarding iOS 8 and Yosemite, we knew that Apple legal would be busy filing many new trademarks with the US Patent and Trademark Office shortly thereafter to cover such things as iCloud Drive, Handoff, Instant Hotspot, Health and more. Yet the first new trademark filing to surface is for one Apple didn't cover at their developer conference publicly, and it's called "Maps Connect." Apple filed it late yesterday in Hong Kong China. The application has no fancy graphic or link to an Apple website page to help us understand exactly what Maps Connect is all about. Yet they may have left us with a few clues. This Report has been Updated

While we'll have to wait for Apple to officially introduce us to this new maps service called "Maps Connect," we can surmise from its very name and a few hints from their international class descriptions that it could relate to CarPlay.

Update June 14, 4:45 PM: we noted earlier that their new trademark didn't cover something that was made public during their keynote and we were right. Rob Wensing at Apple Spotlight emailed me to say that Maps Connect is associated with Apple's indoor mapping positioning. He noted that the name came to light on June tenth or four days ago.

Oddly, nothing about indoor mapping is listed under their international classes noted below. However, this could still play a role with CarPlay in respect to Indoor parking as we noted earlier this week.

Apple's Official International Class Entries

According to Hong Kong China's Patent and Trademark Office's documentation, Apple's trademark application 303031956 was filed under International Class 009 and 042 as follows in full:

Apple secretly filed for this Trademark first in Jamaica in December 2013. The highlights in dark gray noted above were made by us and not Apple. They're just to highlight some of the more realistic class entries related to Apple's pending trademark.

Patently Apple presents a basic summary of new trademark filings with their associated graphics for journalistic news purposes as each such trademark is revealed by the U.S. and/or other foreign Patent & Trademark Offices. This category covers a few Industrial Design reports each year while others could be found in our granted patent archives. Readers are cautioned that the full text of any trademark application should be read in its entirety for further details. About Comments: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit comments.